Improvement in writing-tablets



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PHILANDER SHAW, or BoSToN, MASSACHUSETTS, AssreNoR To cHAS. E.

y HoDeES AND N. D. SILSBEE, or SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN wRlTlNc-TABLE-rs.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 84,664, dated March 1l, 1862.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, PHILANDER SHAW, of the city of Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State o f Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful article of manufacture, the same being a Tablet for l/Vriting Upon and Used as a Slate; and I do hereby declare that the following, taken in connection with the drawings which accompany and form part of this specification, is a'description of my invention sufficient to enable those skilled in the art to practice it.

My vinvention consists in a tablet formed from wood of nearly uniform thickness, (plain board or plank being used, according to the particular requirements of the case,) by the compression of the wood, so that the center of the piece shall be depressed on one or both sides below the edges thereof, forming one or two plane surfaces surrounded by a border or frame, which may also be compressed, though necessarily to a less degree than is the center. The said border or frame may receive in oompression any desired convexity or other form of cross-section and any desirable ornamental or instructive device in relief or indentation, and the depressed plane surface or surfaces are coated with some suitable adhesive waterrepelling preparation of any desired color, and having agrit, tooth, or surface suitable for receiving marks from pencils or crayons.

I prefer to make my new article of manufacture by compression in molds, rst preparing the Wood for entering the mold by sawing or otherwise nearly fitting its outline to the perimeter of the mold, after which the compression is effected by forcing the parts of the mold together by any of the well-known means.

I prefer to practice my invention under and embodying the invention patented to me May 15, 1860, which patent is numbered 28,309, though the invention herein described may be practiced without resort to or embodying the invention described in the said patent.

The aforesaid adhesive preparation which forms the surface to be marked upon may be made in a variety of ways and of different materials. The preparation which I use con* sists of a spirit varnish (by preference alcohol and shellac) in which powdered emery (the our of) and a little coloring-matter are mixed for dark colors, or pulverized pumicestone or some form of silica with suitable coloring-matter for light colors. These preparations or others for a similar purpose may be applied before or after compression of the wood, or partially both before and after.

Referring to the drawings, Figure 1 shows a cross-section through my tablet, taken in the line @c 0c, Fig. 2, and showing the compression by the direction of the fiber.

The density of the depressed portion of the tablet fits it to resist the indenting action of hard pencils and crayons, while the projecting border prevents contact of other surfaces with the marking on the tablet. K

Wooden panels have been used as tablets; but these were not compressed or condensed to fit them to resist the indenting action of hard pencils or crayons, like slate-pencils, and besides this the frame was not integral with the panel. Such tablets, therefore,I disclaim.

I claim- 1. A tablet formed of Wood compressed to resist the indentingy action of pencils or crayons and covered on one or both surfaces with a preparation having a suitable tooth to receive marks from crayons or pencils.

2. Such a tablet when formed`by compression so as to leave a raised border or frame on and around one or both surfaces of the tablet and integral with it.

In'testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 17th day of January, A.D. 1862.

PHILANDER SHAW.

`Witnesses:

J. B. CROSBY, J. E. FALLON. 

